Grand Slam Track, which starts in Jamaica next April, will not be stopping off in London with UK Athletics instead focused on its annual Diamond League meet
Grand Slam Track, which starts in Jamaica next April, will not be stopping off in London with UK Athletics instead focused on its annual Diamond League meet Grand Slam Track, which starts in Jamaica next April, will not be stopping off in London with UK Athletics instead focused on its annual Diamond League meet
Michael Johnson’s upstart track series will not be visiting London next year after talks between competition organisers and UK Athletics chiefs reached an impasse.
UKA boss Jack Buckner says they are taking a wait-and-see approach over whether Grand Slam Track – which has already announced world 1500m champion Josh Kerr and Olympic 400m silver medalist Matthew Hudson-Smith as participants – will grow into a major success.
Grand Slam last week announced that its opening three-day meet will be held in Kingston, Jamaica next April followed by a visit to Miami in May.
But after being approached by organisers of the new competition, UKA felt it was going to be heavily focused on American audiences and there were doubts that London Stadium could sell almost 200,000 tickets across three days.
Grand Slam are yet to announce a broadcast partner or big-name sponsors but Johnson is promising the best prize money in athletics history.
UKA will instead continue to focus on its annual Diamond League meet and Buckner said: “[Grand Slam] did approach us and we had a really good discussion with them.
“But I think you’ve got to get your product right and it has to work, and we think the Diamond League is a product that’s 85-90% the way there.
“We think it’s well on the way to being something really, really good. We don’t want to walk away from that, we want to build off that.
“If the Michael Johnson event came back, and the format worked, of course we would continue to look at it. But where we are right now we think the Diamond League is the one with the greatest potential for us.”
Meanwhile, Buckner said a feasibility study is underway over whether the governing body can bring the 2029 or 2031 World Championships back to London Stadium.
They are already working with the government around a proposal with an update expected early next year. The championships sold out the former Olympic stadium across 10 days in 2017.
Mirror – Sport
